


The Wager

by trashyeggroll



Series: Fictober 2019 [2]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Because I like him more than Virgil, Corny, F/F, Ficlet, Fictober 2019, Joxer Lives, Maintext, Requests, Timeline What Timeline, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 06:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashyeggroll/pseuds/trashyeggroll
Summary: Xena gets dragged into a dangerous situation after Joxer challenges Gabrielle to an asinine bet.





	The Wager

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober prompt #3: “Now? Now you listen to me?"

“Xena, what do we do?” Gabrielle shouted from a few feet in front of the warrior, her voice tense with the strain of running at the same time. 

_ “Now? _ Now you listen to me?” hissed Xena, ducking a low branch as she and Gabrielle sprinted through the Thracian forest in no particular direction except for  _ away _ from their pursuer. 

“Well, I—I don’t have any ideas!”

“Yeah,  _ now _ you don’t!”

It had all started with a bet. A stupid, pointless, childish wager. Xena could’ve strangled Joxer the  _ Meddling _ for planting the idea in her bard’s mind, and then egging her on until Artemis herself couldn’t stop Gabrielle from proving her point. 

_ Egging _ was the only word for it, because that was at the center of the bet: eggs. Specifically,  _ griffin _ eggs. 

While Joxer had insisted griffin had live births, Gabrielle knew of no less than five tales that told varying versions of stories involving eggs. Some said griffin eggs contained a gold nugget, which didn’t make any sense, Joxer had pointed out, or how would any new griffins come into the world?

Obviously, and perhaps due to Xena’s absence while answering nature’s call, the two had ultimately decided that the only way to resolve the bitter dispute would be to find some griffins. The warrior princess had started at  _ absolutely not, _ but her bard batted her eyelashes and pouted, kissing Xena’s stern jaw until the brunette shifted into  _ maybe. _

That much was all the permission Gabrielle needed, and the next day, Xena found herself tracking down a dangerous, wild creature so that Joxer could be proven wrong. She couldn’t say that wasn’t a cause she would get behind in other contexts, without question, but this… Asinine. Travellers along the road gave widely differing accounts of their experiences with a griffin that lived in the forest, and between the lot of them, the trio was able to nail down a reasonable search area in the foothills of a nearby mountain range. 

Dusk was setting by the time Xena picked up the trail of one, evidenced by the broken branches at the very top of trees… and the massively bloody scene where  _ something _ very, very big had killed an elk, leaving behind just carnage and two mangled chunks of antler. The blood trail led them up one of the taller foothills, growing fainter the farther they went, but Xena had a direction now, and that meant their prey was as good as found. 

This was about the time the warrior princess got a little too caught up in their quest, forgetting that the only reason they were doing this was to settle a wager for five dinars, and finding a griffin didn’t even necessarily mean they would find eggs  _ or _ young. Possibly just an early death, or a lost eye. 

But, she still had the wherewithal to demand that they stop once it grew dark, making camp in an alcove protected by a jutting lip of rock. Dinner was a perfunctory thing, just strips of dried beef and hunks of a seeded bread they’d packed (and made Joxer carry; no way Xena was letting Argo get anywhere  _ near _ a griffin nest, despite leading the love of her life there anyway), and Joxer soon fell asleep on his bedroll, snoring loudly. 

Xena sighed as she settled on her own furs, having removed her breastplate and other poky adornments. Her muscles did ache a little from the day’s trek, as did the old breaks and sprains that always protested too much repetitive movement as of late. She shifted, popping several spots in her back, and then a warm weight slid into place next to her, stilling her movements.

“Thanks for babysitting us,” murmured the bard into her shoulder, throwing an arm across the warrior’s stomach. “Honestly, I’ve always wanted to see a griffin. All the things we’ve seen, the worlds we’ve explored… and not one lousy eagle-lion.”

“Sure, why not seek out a giant monster that can pick up an elk and fly away? What could  _ possibly _ go wrong?”

“Oh, stop acting like we forced something on you, like you didn’t have fun today.”

“Fun, right,” huffed Xena, tilting her head down to look into the mischievous green eyes she loved so much. 

Gabrielle laughed, one of Xena’s favorite sounds, and the warrior couldn’t help but relax, putting aside her  _ many _ objections to this adventure yet again. Instead, she tucked an arm under Gabrielle’s shoulders, shifting the bard closer so she could lean down for a kiss.

They had a strict  _ not while Joxer is with us _ rule about sex, with Gabriele sure that Xena would literally murder him if he inadvertently woke up, but that doesn’t stop the bard from enjoying comfortable, quiet intimacy with her partner, letting her hand massage Xena’s sore arms and idly stroke along her chest and the soft leather over her stomach before coming to rest curled around the warrior’s hip.

“You know,” murmured the blonde, her voice heavy with impending sleep. “They say griffins partner for life.”

Xena felt her throat tighten. Those words as much as the aches in her muscles and bones were reminders of something else looming before them: the uncertainty of their long term plans. That conversation over Eve’s swing in the Amazon village, nearly three decades earlier… she remembered the tension there, the things they clearly wanted to say, but never had had the chance to discuss. Not while the Twilight of the Gods was upon them, at any rate. The warrior hummed, deciding maybe another night of putting it off wouldn’t hurt, and replied, “Yeah, and if one griffin dies, the other continues on alone, never taking a new mate.”

That hung heavy between them, until Gabrielle just buried her face in the crook of Xena’s neck. Even the hint of that potential pain was too strong, too overwhelming to consider. For now, they were safe under the curving stone above their heads, with the campfire slowly dying beside them and Joxer’s twitching form across it, for whatever his presence might be worth.

The next morning, they quickly erased evidence of their camp and began hiking the blood trail again, with dew sparkling on the trees of the thick wood leading up the hill. Eventually, the towering forest began to thin, and the types of trees changed, and then they were stepping through sparse cover, trying not to call too much attention to themselves even as herds of mountain goats fled from the group on sight, and flocks of cliffside corvids fluttered and cawed loudly.

Around the time the sun began to crest its path in the sky, Xena’s skin started crawling, the hair on the back of her neck standing. They were nearing the summit of the hill, and a massive rocky outcrop loomed ominously across a barren field, littered with bones and boulders. The warrior stopped the small group at the line of trees, and they waited, watching. Vultures circled high above, waiting for whatever lived in the rock formation to leave behind something they could pick clean. 

“Gotta be it,” said Joxer quietly. “How do we get closer?”

“Not sure there  _ is _ a way that doesn’t involve severe bodily harm,” muttered Xena.

“Come on, we’re so close. Stop whining,” Gabrielle teased in a whisper. “We just have to get close enough to sneak a peek.”

And sneak they did, cautiously winding a jagged path through the boneyard to the base of the outcrop. There was as of yet no sign that their quarry was nearby, but that didn’t stop Xena’s body from tensing the closer they got, until she felt like her spine might snap from the pressure as they climbed a narrow gap in the rocks. It led them out onto a ledge big enough for the three of them to crouch on, reasonably hidden by a patch of dry shrubbery. 

In front of them, the center of the outcropping dropped into a bowl-like shape, with a large flat dropoff on one side and boulder-formed walls on the others. It smelled horrendous, like rotting flesh and animal feces, with a mess of bloodied straw all around that seemed to mark the space as a nest. There were no griffins, but there were precious few creatures in myth and lore that could possibly occupy such a place. 

“Well, that’s a bust,” groused Joxer. “Just more dead stuff. No eggs, though.”

Gabrielle just glared at him, and Xena resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she growled, “Be patient.”

Though he looked forlorn, Joxer didn’t further test her patience as they waited nearly a candlemark—and then the sound of flapping wings could just barely be heard over the whistling wind. It grew louder and deeper within seconds, and the trio ducked as a shadow zipped across their heads. 

_ By the gods. _ Even Xena felt the swell of awe in her chest as a massive golden creature touched down, kicking up debris with its wide, white wings. It was bigger than a lion, several times over, and its white wings were matched by its white-feathered head, ending in a sharp yellow beak. Said beak currently held a large doe, its tongue lolling out of its head as it hung there, clearly dead. The beast was nevertheless breathtakingly beautiful as the humans peered over the bushes at it. 

“See, Xena?” chided Gabrielle, her face aglow with happiness. “If we listened to you, we’d never have gotten to see this.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Xena leaned an elbow on her knee as the griffin carried its prey deeper into the bowl part of the nest. To her shock, something  _ moved _ as it approached, and the warrior barely stifled her gasp as another griffin lifted its great head. This one had brown feathers instead of white, and with its tawny fur, the thing had been completely camouflaged amongst the debris and sparse vegetation. 

The white griffin dropped the doe near the emerging one, making a noise that sounded like something between a cat’s chuff and a dragon screech. The sound was returned by the brown beast, which was standing and stretching its wings. As it moved toward the meal, it left behind what Xena at first thought was a pile of rocks, but then she realized with a flare of joy that they were—

“Eggs,” gasped Joxer, which would have been fine in his previous hushed tone, but no; he said it at normal speaking volume, ending the word in a shocked gasp at his own mistake. 

Xena saw the giant osprey heads turn, heard their alarmed growls, and she groaned, “You have got to be f—“

And that was how they ended up sprinting through the woods, desperately fleeing the mythical creatures while Xena took her moments to gloat about being right, because after all, there was no guarantee that she'd be able to point out her correctness later; the future risked being painful and brief, if Xena didn’t figure out a plan soon. 

The white griffin dove between the trees at them, forcing the humans to throw themselves on the ground to avoid its claws (or, in Joxer’s case, serendipitously tripping over a tree root at the right moment). With a half second to catch her breath, Xena took stock of the ground they’d covered in the scramble, and finally, the start of an idea landed in her brain. It just required  _ more _ running. 

“This way!” she yelled, throwing her chakram from a sitting position as Gabrielle and Joxer got up. It bounced off two trees before cutting a branch, sending it crashing down just as the brown griffin dove. It effectively stopped the beast’s attack, and the humans bolted, the chakram dutifully returning to Xena’s hand as she hit full speed. 

“Where are we going?” shouted Gabrielle. 

“River!” was all Xena could get out, pointing again. 

As her lungs seemed to fill with fire, Xena finally spotted the waterway through the trees, and she kicked into the dirt with renewed vigor. She’d seen what looked like an abandoned fishing shed along the bank on their way up, and now, she was beelining for the small wooden lean-to. 

“Are you crazy?” yelled Joxer. “That’ll never protect us!”

“No,  _ I’m _ doing that,” snapped Xena, nearly losing her footing as the ground shifted from mossy dirt to river pebbles and mud. 

The griffins were bearing down on them again, and the river put them out under the open sky—but Xena’s eyes settled on what she’d hoped she’d find at the shack, and she shouted at her companions to get down on the ground. 

Legendary beasts though they might’ve been, they were still  _ beasts, _ and they therefore still had straightforward weaknesses. And Xena? Xena was a master hunter. 

Her fingers closed around the thick rope of a fishing net, abandoned in the gravel by some long gone angler. It took all her strength, but she ripped the net up out of the ground, where it had worked itself deep, and turned to face their attackers. 

Both griffins were mid-dive, their wings silent and beaks open in ear-splitting screams. Xena had time to take a deep breath, and then she threw the net with a roar of her own. It expanded as it hit the open air, and the white griffin just barely managed to veer off-course enough to miss it, crashing into the riverbank in an explosion of sand and rock. The brown griffin wasn’t so lucky, and though it tried desperately to pull up, the net caught its body and sent it hurtling to the ground like a rock. Xena leapt out of the way of the thrashing bundle, which skidded across the ground and into the water before coming to a stop.

“Run!” yelled the warrior, sparing a glance at the white griffin beginning to rise to its feet, coughing and squawking. The three of them reached the treeline in a matter of seconds, and Xena felt the knot in her chest loosen, ever so slightly; it didn’t sound like they were being pursued. 

After some time, when Joxer tripped over a root again, they pulled to a stop, and Xena tried to listen for danger around deep, panting breaths. 

“Did-did we lose them?” groaned Joxer as he shakily pushed himself up, covered in leaves. 

“I think so,” answered Gabrielle. “That was close.”

Xena was just about to answer when a noise broke through the afternoon, at first alarming her, until she realized that it sounded far away. It was a long, deep call, echoing through the hills, and when it rang through the air again, Xena thought it seemed… sad. When she saw her bard’s expression, she knew she wasn’t the only one hearing it that way. Silent agreement passed between them. 

“What?” asked Joxer, who’d finally made it to his feet. 

They offered to let him stay in the forest where they stood, but he begrudgingly agreed it was probably safer to stay with the warrior and bard—but the trio did walk back through the trees, rather than run, and so by the time they return to the river, they’ve caught their breath and taken plenty of draws off their waterskins. If they needed to run again, at least they’d be refreshed. 

Both griffins turned out to be the source of the forlorn howls. The white one was flitting around, pecking and pawing at the netting still tangled in the wings and two legs of the brown one, which was half-submerged in the river on its side. It was thrashing, but slower than before, and had several bloodied marks in its fur, possibly from the other griffin trying to free it with six-inch claws. Feathers in both colors and tufts of fur floated slowly away on the water, bobbing this way and that in the splashes caused by the griffins. 

“We have to help them,” sighed Gabrielle. “If we hadn’t bothered the nest for our stupid bet, they would just be eating dinner right now.”

Even Joxer looked affected by the piteous sight, and Xena nodded to the bard before removing her breastplate and scabbard, handing them to Gabrielle for safekeeping. She kept her chakram, holding the middle handle part of it and lifting her arms high above her head as the warrior stepped out of the treeline. 

As upset as it was, the white griffin didn’t even notice the approaching human until Xena was just a dozen paces away, and thankfully, it simply turned and screeched at her, its huge golden eyes flashing with rage.

“I know,” said Xena in a loud, but calm voice, keeping perfectly still. “I’m sorry. Let me help. Is this your mate?”

The griffin stomped a huge paw, sending sand flying, but the warrior didn’t move a muscle. 

“I know you want your mate back. I get it, kid. Let me help. Okay?” 

It took a long while, but eventually, the white griffin folded its wings and lowered its head, still watching like a hawk, so to speak, but also allowing Xena to inch closer to the brown one, which was just making piteous whining noises by the time she reached it.

“Easy, now.” The warrior slowly brought her arms down, staying at the griffin’s back, where it was less likely to be able to whip around and bite her. She used the super-sharp edge of the chakram to sew at the thick ropes, trying not to panic with each release of tension. One wing, then another, and then both legs came free of the tangled net, and Xena leapt back from the creature as it rose to its feet, somewhat shakily. Its fur and feathers were caked in mud, but she didn’t see any obvious injuries. 

The griffins made noises that could only be compared to a dove’s soft coo, pressing their heads together and ignoring the human slowly, carefully shuffling away from them. 

When Xena reached the treeline again, accepting her breastplate and sword back from Gabrielle, she turned to find the griffins grooming each other on the dry riverbank. The brown one shook like a dog, splashing mud and water on its mate, who didn’t so much as blink.

Gabrielle chuckled. “Mission accomplished.” 

“That was pretty risky,” muttered Joxer, though he looked relieved as they began moving farther away from the beasts. 

“But worth it,” answered Xena without hesitation. She reached behind her back, blindly, and Gabrielle’s fingers caught hers, entwining with them and holding tight. “I know what it would be like to lose a love like that. I couldn’t be the cause of such a pain.”

“And,” added Gabrielle in a playful tone, “you still owe me five dinars, buddy.” 

Xena allowed herself a smile as the two trudged off, and as she followed behind, she decided it was time to have  _ that _ conversation with her bard, her soulmate. What  _ would _ they do when she wasn’t able to do “kicks and stuff” anymore? 

It didn’t matter, Xena knew, as long as Gabrielle was there with her. 

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on tumblr [trashyeggroll](https://trashyeggroll.tumblr.com/)


End file.
